Former Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar (pictured at left) may be the first elected official ever to resign for failing to publish public notice advertisements. Boockvar stepped down in February after her office missed a publication deadline and delayed the potential passage of a constitutional amendment by at least two years.
“An amendment had been on track for a likely vote on the May 18 primary ballot until it was revealed that the Department of State had missed a key legal advertising deadline, scuttling the proposal, and resetting the clock,” reported the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.
The amendment would have allowed survivors of childhood sexual abuse to file suit even when the statute of limitations had already expired.
The Pennsylvania Constitution requires proposed amendments to be approved by voters. It also requires a notice containing the amendment to be published in two newspapers in every county of the state at least three months prior to the referendum. Pennsylvania has 67 counties.
An inspector general’s report released last week blamed “internal systemic failures within (the Department of State)” for the mistake, and said the department “lacked executive oversight, written policies and procedures, proper staff training, and consistent communication of the process.”
The fallout over the incident has been intense, with Republicans pointing fingers at Democratic Governor Tom Wolf’s administration and child abuse victims and their advocates blaming Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward (R-Westmoreland) for refusing to take up an emergency bill in the Senate.
A new bill has been introduced in the House that would amend the state constitution by shifting official responsibility for publishing the notices from the Secretary of State to the state’s Legislative Reference Bureau. House Bill 1010 is sponsored by Rep. Jason Ortitay, the same lawmaker who introduced HB 955 (discussed in the story above). HB 1010 would still require notice of constitutional amendments to be published in two newspapers in every county.
Pennsylvania isn’t the only state that had a problem this year with notices related to a constitutional initiative. According to the Mississippi Press Association, in April its ad network failed to advertise a medical marijuana ballot initiative in five of the papers the state constitution required the notices to run in.
“To put it mildly, we goofed. Big time,” MPA Executive Director Layne Bruce told his members on the organization’s website.
MPA scheduled the ads to run the following week and the mistake became a moot point last month when the Mississippi Supreme Court voided the state’s ballot initiative process.
Bruce ended his mea culpa by noting the incident actually makes a strong case for keeping public notice advertising in newspapers.
“Imagine if government agencies and private business were entrusted with publishing their own notices on their own obscure websites,” he said. “The opportunity for errors and malfeasance to go unnoticed would grow exponentially.
“So, ironically, even though newspapers — or the Association — on rare occasions do make mistakes, it underscores our importance in the process. Those errors are noticed, they are corrected, and the process continues with all parties assured the law has ultimately been followed.”